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The Early Word: Focus on the Economy

By Michael Falcone July 28, 2008 8:55 amJuly 28, 2008 8:55 am

Senator John McCain is traveling in California and Nevada today. He’ll be holding several fund-raisers and giving a series of media interviews. Senator Barack Obama, meanwhile, is in Washington to meet with his team of economic advisers.

According to his campaign, participants include: Warren Buffett, Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, A.F.L.-C.I.O. President John Sweeney, S.E.I.U. Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger, Google Chairman and C.E.O. Eric Schmidt and other economic leaders.

In a speech to a convention of minority journalists in Chicago on Sunday, Mr. Obama signaled that he would focus on economic issues, according to The Times’s Michael Powell and Susan Saulny. Mr. McCain, on the ABC News program, “This Week,” sought to keep the attention on his opponent’s national security credentials.

The Times’s Mark Leibovich reports that the two candidates, both of whom lack executive experience and have not been elected to the office they seek …. yet, are nevertheless “assuming the trappings and behaviors of already-elected presidents”: “Candidates always strive to project an image consistent with the office they are seeking. But in McCain vs. Obama — the first general election matchup in 56 years that will not include a sitting president or vice president — two senators with minimal executive experience seem to be falling all over themselves to playact the role of president.”
The Times’s Mike McIntire examines Mr. McCain’s ties to a the International Republican Institute, a group created to promote democracy. Mr. McIntire writes: “Over the years, Mr. McCain has nurtured a reputation for bucking the Republican establishment and criticizing the influence of special interests in politics. But an examination of his leadership of the Republican institute — one of the least-chronicled aspects of his political life — reveals an organization in many ways at odds with the political outsider image that has become a touchstone of the McCain campaign for president.”

Politico’s David Paul Kuhn looks at Mr. McCain’s challenges in courting Hispanic voters, citing recent polls that show only a small percentage of Hispanics intend to vote for him in November.

The Washington Post’s Alec MacGillis and Jennifer Agietsa write that Senator Obama faces an uphill battle to register more black voters who “could well put Obama over the top in states where Democrats have come close in the past two elections, and could also help him retain the big swing states of Pennsylvania and Michigan.”

Spouse Watch: Cindy McCain, fresh from a trip to Rwanda, pens an Op-Ed for the Wall Street Journal about the role that the women of that country have played in helping Rwanda recover post-genocide.
Convention Update: The Los Angeles Times takes a fresh look at the challenges the Democratic National Convention Committee at it prepares for the party’s national convention next month:

The host committee is as much as $10 million short in fund-raising, and financial difficulties have forced it to cancel two dozen parties for delegates. Denver officials are scrambling to deal with the logistical challenges of Barack Obama’s acceptance speech being held at an outdoor stadium instead of in the arena where the rest of the convention will take place. Even special daisies that the city bred partly to show off for the convention are failing to sprout.

Criticism has been so harsh that this month the host committee felt compelled to issue a news release defending its much-mocked catering guidelines, which recommend organic produce and color-coordinated meals and discourage fried food.

Veepstakes: The New York Sun’s Russell Berman picks up on clues that Mr. Obama is likely to choose someone other that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to be his running mate:

Asked about the attributes he was looking for in a vice president, the presumptive Democratic nominee said yesterday that he wanted a candidate “who shares a vision of the country, where we need to go, that we’ve got to fundamentally change not only our policies, but how our politics works, how business is done in Washington.” That description is significant because it matches the core argument the Illinois senator offered against Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy to defeat her in the Democratic primary. He characterized the former first lady as representing the status quo and a divisive brand of politics, and his statement yesterday signals that their broad agreement on policy may not be enough to win her a spot on the ticket.

Campaign Trail Roundup:

* Senator John McCain travels to Bakersfield, Calif. and San Francisco for fund-raisers and media interviews.

* Senator Barack Obama is in Washington to meet with his economic advisers. Later he holds a fund-raiser in Arlington, Va.

Senator Obama performed admirably on the world stage, and yet all McCain has to offer is more criticism and complaints. Obama speaks to the issues; McCain whines.

I do hope that the media will include investigative reporting in its accounts of the candidates’ claims. I appreciated the NY Times response to McCain’s insinuation that Obama did not visit the troops in Germany because he couldn’t take TV cameras. In contradiction, The Times reported that Obama did not take media representatives when he visited wounded troops in Iraq, and he has also visited wounded service members at Walter Reed Hospital on prior occasions. We need more facts instead of the “he said, she said” style of reporting. Let’s use this campaign as an opportunity to elevate journalism.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that Barack Obama’s Berlin bounce is fading. Obama now attracts 45% of the vote while John McCain earns 42%. When “leaners” are included, it’s Obama 48% and McCain 45%. Both Obama and McCain are viewed favorably by 56% of voters.”

It is, indeed, the economy, genius ! The Republican mantra of ” LESS GOVERNMENT ” has devastated many citizens’ lives, from the halls of Walter Reed Hospital to the flooded neighborhoods of New Orleans. This is the kind of unresponsive government you will get, voting for Senator McCain. Meanwhile, the financial sector has another ” meltdown “, euphemism, for scandal, and our government is throwing our money at them !! I will not even mention the brutalization of Iraq, nor the exorbitant profits the Oil Corps are raking in !! This nightmare has been brought to us, solely by, The Republican Party and their ideologues that have been installed in our government, to thwart its designated mission: To serve and protect, we the people, not Corps, not ideologies and certainly not, political allies !!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.

This is why I have no faith in Obama and this is where the NY Times fails most seriously in their lack of respectable reporting. Obama has ‘notions’ of plans, the usual ‘soundbite’ rather than facts – but no real knowledge or depth of knowledge required to formulate these plans. Obama voters are going to vote based on mere soundbites and wishful pie-in-the-sky thinking – just as Bush’s voters did. This is pathetic – and it is pathetic that the news medias allow Obama to get away with it.

But its potential impact is almost impossible to gauge because he is providing few details on basic questions such as what the tax rate might be, what types of income would be taxed and how the taxpayers’ benefits would be affected.

The Democratic presidential candidate says he would work with lawmakers from both parties to resolve such matters. Voters generally applaud bipartisan cooperation, but they apparently will go to the polls this fall with only a vague notion of what Obama has in mind

It’s a rare contest of two ‘equals’ one with zero miltary experience with the other with almost zero economic issues experiece with both as a C-in-C will decide on both this critical issues facing the nation.

Again Sen.Obama is doing the right thing by meeting with economic advisers while Sen.McCain is spending his money on Ads debunking Sen.Obama’s successful trip abroad.

Economy is the number one issue something that Sen.McCain has admitted is not his long suit.
An example in point…. he goes to a Grocery store and instead of talking about the high prices in the marketplace he talked about the surge.
Pathetic !!

Watch out JD, your statistic doesn’t really fall in line with Obama’s rhetoric on the new kind of politics. Remember Bill Clinton was a racist (even though he was also the first black president) and life was terrible under his presidency according to Obama. He wasn’t part of the “party of ideas”, the Republicans. Remember those tough times when gas was under 2 dollars and we had a huge surplus? Terrible times those were, why would we want to go back thosevold style politics? Let’s go forward to the new style of Obama politics, check those polls so you know what issues we believe in this week.

ohn McCain will now be forced to talk about domestic policy and the economy. He had his chance last week, but he spent that time attacking Barack Obama on foreign policy. As for Barack Obama, let’s hope that he does come up with something more substantial for his domestic policies and the economy.

Considering the GOP and George Bush were instrumental in putting the economy in shambles; it will be an uphill battle for John McCain to come up with a domestic agenda and economic plan that would be believable and contain actual substance..

In the end, we will get a comprehensive plan from Barack Obama and he will continue to see attacks from John McCain. That is , this won’t work, or that won’t work, but offer nothing of his own in place. I expect John McCain will continue the commander in chief attacks, even though there will be a strong shift towards the domestic agenda. The campaign is getting very predictable: Barack Obama suggest’s X; then John McCain attacks X, but offers no alternative to X.

“two senators with minimal executive experience seem to be falling all over themselves to playact the role of president.”

Wow, I’m impressed that someone in the media finally acknowledges that McCain doesn’t actually have any experience that matters either. The fact is unless a candidate is running as a sitting president running for a second term, or possibly a former high-level cabinet member, any claims of experience are simply false.

It appears that youre only contribution nowadays is to snipe at Obama. Do you have anything positive to add before you reveal whom you will actually vote for as you sure do come across as a McCain supporter by default?

— Posted by Katy
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It appears that you only read the first 2 paragraphs of the column. Once again you have to remember that anything regarding policy that Obama proposes can be found on his website at//www.barackobama.com.

If you would stop trying to digest the opinions of the biased media and it’s “reporters”, spend time researching on your own and open your mind while looking past race – you might just find the information you need to make an intelligent post about Obama one of these days.

Hillary can and will morph into excactly that description if chosen. She had not to fit that role in order for Obama to claim himself as the only (significant) candidate who did. She or whomever he chooses will have to fit that role for the general election.

If Johnny McCain can be an “outsider” after nearly three decades in the senate scores of Sundays on the talk shows, and much palling around with the press on the bus, anyone can be an outsider.

Chicken and egg situation: WSJ reports that Americans drove 40 billion less miles over the last few months.
That is bad news for our Government, because we are paying less in fuel taxes. As a result many highway and bridge repair projects may have to be scaled down and consequently more jobs will be lost.

The question is: Are we going to see more collapsed bridges? Or, are we going to see higher gas taxes, if we drive less?

Rather than having all those top-shots (billionaires and banking officials) there, I’d be interested in the sort of economics that enabled Clinton to rise from the ashes of 12 years of fiscally irresponsibility by the Republicans.

Just because Obama gets more press doesn’t mean its more positive press. The whole “media is in love with Obama” thing is really becomign tiresome because it’s such a fallacy. The truth is, they use every opportunity they can to tear him down.

President Obama drew criticism on Thursday when he said, “we don’t have a strategy yet,” for military action against ISIS in Syria. Lawmakers will weigh in on Mr. Obama’s comments on the Sunday shows.Read more…